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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23564422">Aftermath</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/purglepurglepurgle/pseuds/purglepurglepurgle'>purglepurglepurgle</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Darkfic, Gen, Satire, political fiction</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 19:02:00</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>980</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23564422</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/purglepurglepurgle/pseuds/purglepurglepurgle</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A reactor explosion. Tseng smokes a cigarette and watches as Midgar responds. Darkfic.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Aftermath</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Another political darkfic. Heavier than the last, think more akin to 'The Crowd' (Tseng in this is closer to Tseng in that, and certainly not the same Tseng from 'Agitators'). Don't read if you'd rather some escapism from politics, bigotry etc; intended to be close to the bone. Fic's based on the original game, not the remake, and I don't keep the same headcanons from fic to fic.</p><p>(I wrote this a while back, in case anyone's worried I'm having really bad couple of days or something! But nah, just trying to get stuff posted before the remake comes out, to avoid confusing new fans with my rambles. )</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Explosion at the Number 01 Reactor!"</p><p><em>Oh no... </em>Tseng feels his throat tighten as the emergency broadcast shoves <em>Bathroom Disasters </em>off his screen. He can hear sirens outside his window. He walks over, reaches a hand through the blinds (he tends not to open them, even in the day; it feels too visible), and pulls the window shut. His stomach is tense.</p><p>He returns to his television.</p><p>
  <em>"Death toll: 70, and rising."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Speculated to be a terrorist attack."</em>
</p><p><em>Thank you for contributing to that speculation,</em> thinks Tseng. The news is already repeating the same three clips-- flames, an ambulance, harried Shinra emergency services personnel yelling at the press to get out of the way-- so, with a tired feeling, Tseng opens a news tab on his laptop. The broadcasts are always some 30 minutes behind the blogosphere.</p><p>
  <em>Please don't be Wutaian...</em>
</p><p>The first comments are rolling in, of the predictable sort. He hopes it was a mechanical failure, even though he's not known for his optimism and he wouldn't put money on it if asked-- but soon, the reports have switched from 'suspected terrorism' to 'terrorist attack', and Tseng lights a cigarette, resigned. His phone buzzes. Heidegger. Tseng waits for the flurry of texts to stop, then opens the last one, "NEVER MIND ALL THAT, CALLING YOU NOW!"</p><p>Tseng braces himself, not bothering to read the previous 12 messages. If nothing else, Heidegger is predictable in a crisis.</p><p>One loud, sweary, and pointless phonecall later, Tseng goes to make himself a coffee, since he'll be up all night following the reports. He's running low on grounds. Small cup, then. It's not worth it to go out this evening.</p><p>He returns to the sofa, coffee in hand. If he were the sort to believe in gods and their ilk, he'd draw a shape in some sand and send a prayer down to Leviathan to treat the dead with kindness, but he has a vested interest in the impermanence of the soul. He sips his drink and hopes the victims were asleep at the time. More news reports, more 'live from the scene', more <em>incisive</em> analysis on social media. Tseng is almost relieved when AVALANCHE eventually take responsibility-- AVALANCHE, a group without a single Wutaian member-- but by then, of course, it doesn't matter. By the next morning, a Wutaian restaurant has been burned down (15 dead, 1 child), anything resembling a temple has been defaced, and the city is full of patrolling armed guards, of the sort who have always been too violent and impulsive to make it into Shinra infantry, let alone SOLDIER.</p><p>Tseng smokes another cigarette and tells his team he will be working remotely today.</p><p>He can't concentrate on the paperwork. He flicks on the news. They're interviewing a popular academic.</p><p>
  <em>"The thing is, Bob, it's an inherently violent ideology. They believe in The Great Leviathan, a serpent that will destroy us all at the end of the world-- they believe it </em>
  <em>
    <b>will</b>
  </em>
  <em> happen, and this fatalistic ideology means they don't respect human life. Worse than that; from an early age, they're taught to </em>
  <em>
    <b>glorify</b>
  </em>
  <em> death. It's a real problem, Bob, and let me tell you, it scares me. We've only seen the beginning of what it can do."</em>
</p><p>Tseng and his inherently violent ideology get up and microwave an old slice of pizza. When he returns, the man is still wittering on.</p><p>
  <em>"It's not racist to criticise a religion. I need to make that clear. Because they'll try to muddy the waters, let me tell you. But a religion isn't a race-- it's a system of beliefs, a </em>
  <em>
    <b>choice</b>
  </em>
  <em>. And it's the beliefs that are dangerous. The Great Leviathan, consuming the unworthy, leaving the rest-- it teaches them that some people don't deserve to live. It's a repugnant ideology, and we should fight it with everything we have, or before we know it, it'll be infecting us, too. We're already seeing it-- there's a temple on every street these days, and you can't say anything! And this disease is only getting more pernicious through these continued attacks on our free speech and the underhanded elision of racism with justified criticism."</em>
</p><p>(Fun fact: The good people of Junon have an analogous myth, The Kraken, that will devour the land at world's end. But the good people of Junon are human, and thus have as many different attitudes to the story as there are good people of Junon. Few people take it literally, of course. That would be <em>ludicrous</em>)</p><p>He changes the channel. This time it's a red-cheeked, sweating man, with a friendly, open face. <em>"Integration. That's the thing. You don't wanna integrate? Fine, be my guest-- or rather, don't be my guest! Stay right where you are, stay as far away from me as possible-- but if you </em><em><b>do</b></em><em> come here, integrate, or get out. From the little things, like not raping children or bombing every building you walk into, to the big ones, like maybe getting a haircut every once in a while. If I'm honest, I think I find the grease more offensive than the terrorism. You look like women!"</em></p><p>That one is almost refreshing-- almost. At least he's not hiding behind a veneer of respectability. Tseng tosses his womanly hair and turns the TV off again. He wonders what Shinra's response will be. More ID checks? Seems a bit pointless when they'll just go off his eyes.</p><p>By the end of the day, the reactor 01 explosion is widely regarded as a Wutaian/terrorist attack (the terms are more synonymous than ever), there's a mild controversy over the commentator he saw earlier (<em>"Popular Comedian Finds Terrorism 'Inoffensive'!"</em>), and someone's thrown a brick through the window of a Gongagan bakery, having mistaken it for a Wutaian one. Well, Tseng supposes it's an easy mistake. He's always found that people are much the same wherever you go.</p>
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